It is late morning
before the sun rises
over these red cliffs,
Golden halos blaze
behind the evergreens.
What luck on winter solstice
to watch the sun rise twice—
like getting to fall in love
two times with the same lover.
May the sunrise always remind me
to fall in love again with the world.
Every morning may I know the choice
to open the heart and see myself
as the world.
Posts Tagged ‘solstice’
Skiing By the River
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, solstice, sunrise on December 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Solstice Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, solstice, surrender, trojan horse on December 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The night is a poem
with verbs of shadow
and nouns of deep,
a poem I never tire
of reading, a poem
that writes itself
into my thoughts,
enters my imagination
like a Trojan Horse—
when its dark ink
overcomes me,
you’d almost think
I was happy
for the ambush,
you’d almost think
I flung wide the gates
on purpose
knowing full well
how the story
would end.
One Devotion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, friendship, light, solstice on December 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Only one day a year gets to be the longest day,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, solstice, summer, sun on June 22, 2020| 5 Comments »
though during midsummer in Finland, the sun will float
above the horizon line for weeks, and each light-soaked
day seems longest. That is what I wish for you—
day after day of unsetting love, whole months when you feel
the most beloved, the most seen, the most embraced
for exactly who you are. I want to send you
giant bouquets of days, all of them the loveliest,
all of them invitations to feel the most wholly yourself.
And on the shorter days when warmth feels distant,
those are the days I want to remind you that it’s normal
to feel unlovable. It’s normal to feel not enough.
It’s normal to wish (unreasonable though it is)
that those days would disappear and every day could be
the best day, the longest light, the day most soaked with love.
Surprise Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, light, losing the self, loss of the separate self, night, solstice on December 21, 2019| 4 Comments »
And this is the chapter
when it just feels
too much too much
to turn on the light
and so you sit
in the dark.
This is not a myth
in which you are punished,
turned into a tree or a kingfisher—
nor is this the story
in which you discover
your own light.
No, this is the night
in which you are simply
a lifetime of tired
and unable to turn on the light.
And so it’s you
and the night.
It’s you and the night.
And then it’s just the night.
The Power Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book of the dead, candle, darkness, light, poem, poetry, power, solstice on December 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »
and so we rise in darkness
and let our bodies move
without the blare of light.
The house is still and we
are somehow changed
by stillness, changed
by dark. As if we’ve
grown pads in our feet.
As if we are learning
a new silent language
with our limbs, a language
more graceful, more awake.
We find candles. Find
matches. Let the tiny lights
find us. For a thousand years
in Egypt, they wrote
and rewrote The Book
of Emerging Forth into the Light,
a series of writings we somehow came
to call The Book of the Dead.
All the spells were written
to help the dead person journey
through hostile forces
into the afterlife.
And this morning, we
are our only obstacles.
Still, the candles
are a bit like spells,
guiding us with their brilliant ink
toward dawn. There
are no warnings, no judgements,
no naming of evil spirits.
Only this new language
to learn with its syntax
of carbon, it etymologies
of shadow, its phonemes
of coming light.
One in Deep December
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, dark, poem, poetry, solstice on December 18, 2018| 3 Comments »
the night asked me
to read its poetry, all that ink
scrawled across the world—
reading late without the light,
I, too, become page, poem
Almost to Solstice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, light, poem, poetry, solstice on December 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »
There is a light and it never goes out
—The Smiths, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
And even in these darkest days
in the darkest rooms
with the darkest thoughts
and the darkest words
with the darkest songs
in the dark-full ears
and when the darkening dreams
weights the darkest fear
even then there’s a light
and it never goes out,
even then, when the eyes
know only doubt, even then,
even then, there’s a hand
eager to spill shine
into our cup and all
we need to do is drink,
then pour a bit of shine
for someone else.
When Skies Are Gray
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry, solstice, sunshine, you are my sunshine on December 23, 2017| 2 Comments »
We used to sing
You are my sunshine,
sang it like
a children’s song,
all glitter and wing.
That was before
we knew
how dark it can get,
sky without stars,
night without moon.
Even the brightest songs
can be sung in a minor key.
That is no reason
to stop singing.
That’s the time
to ask someone
to dance, please,
slow, your bodies
practicing how
to make light.
On the Winter Solstice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling in love with the world, light, poem, poetry, solstice, world on December 22, 2016| 2 Comments »
On this gray, near-drizzling day
I write again this love letter
for the earth, which is, I suppose,
what all poems are, though they
disguise themselves as poems about
children or wine or baseball or snow.
On this longest night, it’s so clear—
the truest reason to write at all is to fall
more deeply in love with the world,
with its trees and its drizzle
and its stubborn shine and its
relentless hunger and its corners
that will never ever ever see the growing light.
Fall in love with the octopus that can detach
an arm on purpose and then grow it back again.
Fall in love with the elusive lynx
and the crooked forest and the frazzle ice
tinkling in the San Miguel River.
Fall in love even with this profoundly flawed
species that, despite all its faults,
is still capable of falling more deeply,
more wildly in love.